diff --git a/doc/source/v0.15.1.txt b/doc/source/v0.15.1.txt
index 89447121930fb..2bd88531f92d9 100644
--- a/doc/source/v0.15.1.txt
+++ b/doc/source/v0.15.1.txt
@@ -26,6 +26,8 @@ API changes
 Enhancements
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
+- Added option to select columns when importing Stata files (:issue:`7935`)
+
 
 .. _whatsnew_0151.performance:
 
diff --git a/pandas/io/stata.py b/pandas/io/stata.py
index 8bf1c596b62cf..c2542594861c4 100644
--- a/pandas/io/stata.py
+++ b/pandas/io/stata.py
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
 
 def read_stata(filepath_or_buffer, convert_dates=True,
                convert_categoricals=True, encoding=None, index=None,
-               convert_missing=False, preserve_dtypes=True):
+               convert_missing=False, preserve_dtypes=True, columns=None):
     """
     Read Stata file into DataFrame
 
@@ -55,11 +55,14 @@ def read_stata(filepath_or_buffer, convert_dates=True,
     preserve_dtypes : boolean, defaults to True
         Preserve Stata datatypes. If False, numeric data are upcast to pandas
         default types for foreign data (float64 or int64)
+    columns : list or None
+        Columns to retain.  Columns will be returned in the given order.  None
+        returns all columns
     """
     reader = StataReader(filepath_or_buffer, encoding)
 
     return reader.data(convert_dates, convert_categoricals, index,
-                       convert_missing, preserve_dtypes)
+                       convert_missing, preserve_dtypes, columns)
 
 _date_formats = ["%tc", "%tC", "%td", "%d", "%tw", "%tm", "%tq", "%th", "%ty"]
 
@@ -977,7 +980,7 @@ def _read_strls(self):
             self.path_or_buf.read(1)  # zero-termination
 
     def data(self, convert_dates=True, convert_categoricals=True, index=None,
-             convert_missing=False, preserve_dtypes=True):
+             convert_missing=False, preserve_dtypes=True, columns=None):
         """
         Reads observations from Stata file, converting them into a dataframe
 
@@ -999,6 +1002,10 @@ def data(self, convert_dates=True, convert_categoricals=True, index=None,
         preserve_dtypes : boolean, defaults to True
             Preserve Stata datatypes. If False, numeric data are upcast to
             pandas default types for foreign data (float64 or int64)
+        columns : list or None
+            Columns to retain.  Columns will be returned in the given order.
+            None returns all columns
+
         Returns
         -------
         y : DataFrame instance
@@ -1034,6 +1041,35 @@ def data(self, convert_dates=True, convert_categoricals=True, index=None,
             data = DataFrame.from_records(data, index=index)
             data.columns = self.varlist
 
+        if columns is not None:
+            column_set = set(columns)
+            if len(column_set) != len(columns):
+                raise ValueError('columns contains duplicate entries')
+            unmatched = column_set.difference(data.columns)
+            if unmatched:
+                raise ValueError('The following columns were not found in the '
+                                 'Stata data set: ' +
+                                 ', '.join(list(unmatched)))
+            # Copy information for retained columns for later processing
+            dtyplist = []
+            typlist = []
+            fmtlist = []
+            lbllist = []
+            matched = set()
+            for i, col in enumerate(data.columns):
+                if col in column_set:
+                    matched.update([col])
+                    dtyplist.append(self.dtyplist[i])
+                    typlist.append(self.typlist[i])
+                    fmtlist.append(self.fmtlist[i])
+                    lbllist.append(self.lbllist[i])
+
+            data = data[columns]
+            self.dtyplist = dtyplist
+            self.typlist = typlist
+            self.fmtlist = fmtlist
+            self.lbllist = lbllist
+
         for col, typ in zip(data, self.typlist):
             if type(typ) is int:
                 data[col] = data[col].apply(self._null_terminate, convert_dtype=True,)
diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/test_stata.py b/pandas/io/tests/test_stata.py
index c5727a5579b79..2cb7809166be5 100644
--- a/pandas/io/tests/test_stata.py
+++ b/pandas/io/tests/test_stata.py
@@ -720,12 +720,29 @@ def test_dtype_conversion(self):
 
         tm.assert_frame_equal(expected, conversion)
 
+    def test_drop_column(self):
+        expected = self.read_csv(self.csv15)
+        expected['byte_'] = expected['byte_'].astype(np.int8)
+        expected['int_'] = expected['int_'].astype(np.int16)
+        expected['long_'] = expected['long_'].astype(np.int32)
+        expected['float_'] = expected['float_'].astype(np.float32)
+        expected['double_'] = expected['double_'].astype(np.float64)
+        expected['date_td'] = expected['date_td'].apply(datetime.strptime,
+                                                        args=('%Y-%m-%d',))
 
+        columns = ['byte_', 'int_', 'long_']
+        expected = expected[columns]
+        dropped = read_stata(self.dta15_117, convert_dates=True,
+                             columns=columns)
 
+        tm.assert_frame_equal(expected, dropped)
+        with tm.assertRaises(ValueError):
+            columns = ['byte_', 'byte_']
+            read_stata(self.dta15_117, convert_dates=True, columns=columns)
 
-
-
-
+        with tm.assertRaises(ValueError):
+            columns = ['byte_', 'int_', 'long_', 'not_found']
+            read_stata(self.dta15_117, convert_dates=True, columns=columns)
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     nose.runmodule(argv=[__file__, '-vvs', '-x', '--pdb', '--pdb-failure'],